Category: Worldwide

“When we look at how everything combined, it was a perfect storm,” Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter- Los Angeles, says. “We were in the midst of a pandemic, but that pandemic also meant that the outward-facing work that most of us do — hustling our children to and from school, hustling across freeways to our jobs outside of our homes — there was a necessary slowing of that. And so, when George Floyd was murdered, we watched all eight minutes and 46 seconds. We had to. There was no turning our heads.”

Abdullah is the chair of the Department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles; her work as an educator is widely renowned. But in 2020 the tenured academic was out in the streets — leading protests throughout LA to fight for racial justice. She was joined by tens of thousands of people, particularly young people, who raised their voices to stand up against systemic oppression.

That’s worth underscoring. As we look back on a year spent in quarantine, it would be easy to draw the conclusion that society was more isolated than ever. But there’s a story of connection to be told, too. The protests following George Floyd’s murder were the largest in American history — as an estimated 15-26 million people took to the streets to stand up for Black lives.

“We rose up,” Abdullah says. “And once we rose up, I think people got what we’ve been saying for seven years. ‘Black Lives Matter.’”

In 2020 — in the throes of a global pandemic — the Black Lives Matter movement gained tremendous momentum. Millions of Americans, day after day, taking to the streets. At its height, there was an average of 140 separate protests per day across the county.

People didn’t just want to protest, either. They wanted to know more, too; be more aware. Anti-racism book sales skyrocketed — at one point all ten non-fiction books on the NYT bestseller list were about racism. We even shifted the way we spent money. Searches on Yelp for Black-owned businesses went up 7000%.

And in November, people voted for change. Also in historic numbers.

“In 2020, leading up to the election, we were very clear that we have to build the vote and organize,” Abdullah says. “Black folks, especially, were pivotal in organizing voters to the polls — young voters, Black voters, voters of color. But once we win victories at the polls, we need to remember that we have to continue to engage with those elected officials to make sure that we hold them accountable.”

Abdullah sees a lot of “next steps.” Politicians who made big promises when their jobs were at stake will need to be pressed. Allies will have to stay in the fight. And the values that so many of us chanted about and painted on signs need to be applied to our day-to-day lives.

“Every year, and especially this year, we have something called Black Xmas with a website, blackxmas.org,” Abdullah says. “The three tenets of that are: build Black, buy Black and bank Black.”

With more and more vital resources like Black Xmas, along with guides for supporting Black entrepreneurs and restaurants, and scores of political and social justice organizations to get involved with, there’s literally no valid excuse for not carrying the energy of the protest movement forward. In that sense, 2021 offers a clean slate to take real steps toward racial equality. But the onus remains on all of us to keep pushing, keep listening, keep caring, and keep doing the work.

“I’m hopeful about what this movement means,” Abdullah says. “Black Lives Matter was measured to be the largest social justice movement in global history. And so that means there’s a willingness for the first time for people to really confront both individual and systemic racism. And I think that 2021 can move us forward in really meaningful ways with so many people having stepped into this work. We want to make sure that folks aren’t just saying Black lives matter; in 2021, we want to make Black lives matter.”

The Stand: Premiere (CBS All Access) — Constant Readers will appreciate this fresh take on Stephen King’s epic novel, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest post-apocalyptic works of fiction. Those who are afraid of checking into pandemic land can rest assured that the show feels like an unlikely antidote to the hellish things that humanity has seen this year. The show also goes non-linear in order to avoid wading through the superflu like the book did, since this isn’t really a “pandemic” story but one about the rebuilding of society and the archetypal battle between good and evil.

The Flight Attendant (HBO Max series) — It’s finale time, y’all, so who’s the murderer? Kaley Cuoco busts away from the The Big Bang Theory with a fun flight of (darkly comedic) fancy. She plays portrays an airline stewardess whose international jet-setting lifestyle includes falling into bed in various countries with various handsome men. During the course of one particularly fateful encounter, Cassie wakes up next to the dead body of a one-night stand. She spends the rest of the series attempting to clean sh*t up. Surrender to this madcap ride.

Homeschool Musical Class of 2020 (HBO Max documentary special) — High school seniors who’ve been remote schooling let it all out with songs while expressing how strange it is to have one’s high school experience be cut short in the blink of an eye. Well, almost. You know what happened this year, and it’s still happening, but these resilient kids are here with tune from their spring musicals that were cancelled. Enjoy.

Station 19 (ABC, 8:00pm EST) — The firefighter drama’s dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in Seattle while Ben’s dealing with Loss and Jack an Inara increase their bonds. Heroic efforts also lead to conflict with cops who are feeling a little less heroic.

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 9:00pm EST) — The new COVID-19 reality continues for the Grey Sloan crew as the hospital surges, along with surrounding hospitals, and a controversial surgery rattles Owen and Amelia.

The Unicorn (CBS, 9:30pm EST) — Wade the Widower’s still played by Walton Goggins, which is fantastic news for all involved, including the audience. This week, Wade’s dealing with weird chemistry on the job while Delta and Michelle clash.

Star Trek: Discovery (CBS, 10:00pm EST) — The U.S.S. Discovery must get creative to survive unprecedented forces and move towards home while in unfamiliar territory.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Jon Batiste

Jimmy Kimmel Live — Viola Davis, Daveed Diggs, The Bird and the Bee ft. Dave Grohl

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Paul McCartney, Pedro Pascal, The Voidz

The Late Late Show With James Corden — Gal Gadot, Smith & Burrows

Late Night With Seth Meyers — Kristen Wiig; Carrie Underwood

In case you missed these picks from last Thursday:

Haute Dog (HBO Max holiday special episode) — Dogs all dressed up and loving it means that one won’t be able to stop smiling while watching, and the head-to-tail dog grooming creative competition series is now doing the holiday thing. These dogs

House Of Ho (HBO Max series) — Inspired by Crazy Rich Asians, this reality series follows a wealthy Vietnamese-American family who lives in Houston and engages in mad power struggles from within their own ranks. In short, the adult children feel pressured to live up to their parents’ conquering of the American dream, but expect plenty of love and laughter along the way.

Let Them All Talk (HBO Max original film) — Steven Soderbergh directs this comedy film that stars Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen, Dianne Wiest, Gemma Chan, and Lucas Hedges.

Alice in Borderland (Netflix series) — Based upon an original graphic novel by Haro Asu, this survival-thriller manga adaptation follows a group of friends who compete within dangerous games in an effort to survive. Usagi, a young woman who’s going it alone ends up transforming the life of Arisu, a video-game-obsessed dude who soon learn what it really means to live.

Marco Rubio has been getting dragged on Twitter after clutching his pearls over comments made by an incoming Biden Staffer, and now, AOC has entered the fray. Despite supporting Donald Trump, who makes unsavory comments on an almost daily basis, Rubio chastised the Biden Administration after incoming staffer Jen O’Malley Dillon dropped the F-bomb while describing Republicans in an interview with Glamour.

“Biden talks about unity and healing, but you want to know what they really think?” Rubio tweeted. “Read how the person he wants as the next WH deputy chief of staff called Republicans in Congress a bunch of f***ers.”

After having his hypocrisy widely mocked on the social media platform, AOC unloaded on the Florida senator Thursday afternoon and reminded Rubio of the time that he stayed conveniently quiet after Republican Congressman Ted Yoho called her a “f*cking b*tch” in front of a reporter for The Hill.

“You stood by in total silence when your GOP colleague called a Congresswoman a “f— b—” on the Capitol steps in front of press,” AOC tweeted at Rubio. “You weren’t big enough to speak then, & you don’t get to sob now. BTW that is the right word for those who fleece & scam working families.”

You can see AOC light Rubio on fire below:

This isn’t the first time that AOC has taken Rubio down a peg on Twitter. In early November, the New York congresswoman dunked on Rubio‘s remarks that “Not every democrat is a socialist. But every socialist is a democrat.” As AOC does, she not only scorched Rubio, but also took down the GOP’s rote talking point with him.

“Curious what you call GOP giving away billions in public funds to Wall St & fossil fuel companies?” AOC fired back. “Or what you call YOUR ability to go to Walter Reed hospital & receive socialized healthcare for free? Funny how it’s only ‘socialism’ when others get what y’all give yourselves.”

(Via AOC on Twitter)

In promoting his impressive debut album Better throughout the year, Atlanta rising star Deante’ Hitchcock has put out some amusing and entertaining videos, including the scam-tastic “I Got Money Now” and the rebellious “Attitude.” His latest visual from the project finds him tapping back into his tongue-in-cheek sense of humor in the “Plug Me In” video.

Directed by WhoIsGLP, the video turns Hitchcock into a series of boyfriend robots that need to be “plugged in” by their owners. After introducing the concept with shots of the Deante’s being manufactured, the rest of the video depicts the outrageous results of the bots in use. One woman is the “Plain Jane” who “only calls when male companion is gone,” while another is a “Sugar Mama” who will “spend her entire retirement check on you.”

Naturally, with the robots classifying their companions this way, it’s only a matter of time before they end up abandoned and thrown in the garbage. All the while, Deante’ clowns such finicky women in the song’s lyrics, warning, “I don’t wanna show up, ain’t no love there.”

Watch Deante’ Hitchcock’s “Plug Me In” video above.

Better (Deluxe) is out now on ByStorm Entertainment/RCA Records. Listen to it here.

Actress Carey Mulligan sings “New York, New York,” uninterrupted, for nearly five minutes in 2011’s Shame. It’s a terrific performance, but it’s got nothing on her rendition of — no offense to Liza and Frank — a much better song in Promising Young Woman.

In the directorial debut from Killing Eve writer Emerald Fennell, Mulligan plays Cassie, a former-medical student who seeks out revenge against men who take advantage of women, including a toxic “nice guy” played by Bo Burnham. In one scene, the comedian and Eighth Grade filmmaker and Mulligan perform “a full karaoke rendition” of Paris Hilton’s 2006 Billboard-charting single, “Stars Are Blind.” The song was much-maligned at the time, but its reputation has (correctly) improved over the years, and Fennell told the Hollywood Reporter that it needed to be in Promising Young Woman because “you would immediately love any man that knew every word of that song”:

“It was a matter of begging Paris to let us have it before shooting,” she said, adding that Mulligan and Burnham “pulled out the performance of a lifetime” when singing the song. Mulligan added, “It was so embarrassing. A lot of it was Bo and I singing Paris Hilton at the top of our lungs with no music in this completely silent empty pharmacy with 30 crew members staring at us.”

Between the “Stars Are Blind” karaoke (a legit bop) and the “Toxic” cover, Promising Young Woman — which opens on December 25 after being delayed since April — is doing wonders for mid-2000s pop. I hope “Don’t Cha” plays over the end credits.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

Scott Van Pelt was the one tasked with handling SportsCenter duties the night the NBA shut down, effectively signaling that the sports world as a whole would be coming to a halt as the COVID-19 pandemic made its first tangible impact on sports. It was a surreal night and one that, nine months later remains a defining moment of this year in sports and beyond, as it became the moment that many began really taking to pandemic seriously.

Sports are back now, but the virus is spreading at a greater rate than ever, with sports leagues pressing onward through positive tests and postponements that have become normalcy. At ESPN, the pandemic has led to a number of changes as well, with many of their analysts working remotely and commentating teams in some sports working from home or a studio.

Van Pelt’s seen a change as well, as he’s moved his midnight SportsCenter to ESPN’s Washington D.C. studio space, as he moved back home to the DMV area from Bristol. His edition of SportsCenter has become a favorite for fans due to segments like Bad Beats and Winners, as well as the free-flowing conversations he has with athlete guest and ESPN analysts. However, Van Pelt announced he will be off air for “a bit” after testing positive for COVID-19 this week.

One would assume Van Pelt’s slot will be filled by the L.A. SportsCenter crew, but the hope is obviously that SVP remains symptom free aside from his loss of taste and smell and is able to make a full and speedy recovery.

The start of this year marked a new decade, and as it comes to a close, it feels as though, somehow, another has passed. In every sense, 2020 has been a year that has both separated us and drawn us closer together than ever before — and games have been here for us throughout it all. We attended weddings in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, betrayed our friends in Among Us, and revisited our childhood selves in games such as Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, and the Super Mario 3D All-Stars trilogy. We shared our Ghost of Tsushima photos — all captured in Kurosawa mode, of course — and the builds we used in Hades, faced Sephiroth yet again in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and joined Joel and Ellie for a final adventure in The Last of Us 2.

With 2020 also came the next generation of consoles: the Playstation 5 and the Xbox Series X and S. These releases come with promises of innovation and excitement — of new voices telling new stories and creating beautiful worlds for us to both cherish and explore. As we step bravely into the unknown — which is absolutely what 2021 feels like — we’re doing so with the same excitement and anticipation games have bestowed upon us through this year. But before we dive into that, let’s take a final look back at the greatest gaming experiences this year had to offer as decided by a vote from the contributing writers and editors for UPROXX Edge Gaming.

HONORABLE MENTION

The Last Of Us Part II

I was talking with a co-worker who is evangelical about The Last Of Us 2 and when I told him where I was in the game he delighted in telling me how I was nowhere near as far as I thought I was. Then he told me how happy he was for me that I still had so much to discover. Normally, this kind of thing would freak me out. I’m still working through the idea that games are to be experienced not just conquered. I buy them, I play them, and I either finish or tire of them before moving on to something else. With Last Of Us 2, however, I genuinely feel a pull to go back to it after trying to love CyberPunk or getting destroyed in Warzone. Even though things operate on a track the storytelling and performances are at such a high level that I fall in, forgetting how long it’s taking and how far I’ve gotten. I’m captivated. Utterly. — Jason Tabrys

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is not the kind of game you’d expect to see on a year-end roundup like this. There aren’t any first-person shooter elements, it hasn’t really broken through the cultural zeitgeist like Fall Guys or Animal Crossing, and it’s a sequel title that doesn’t wholly capture the aura of mystery that made its predecessor so intriguing to play. But you know what? It doesn’t f*cking matter. You’ll be hard-pressed to find an adventure as beautifully-wrought as this — with its dense forests and lush nature scenes that rival artwork you’d see in Soho gallery — with a story as emotionally gripping and gameplay as complex, thought-provoking, and addictively fun. Whether you’re looking for a break from your normal line-up or just craving a game with a bit of magic and an adorable, genderless pixie hero, you won’t regret joining this quest. — Jessica Toomer

Kentuck Route Zero

We’re admittedly missing some really great games from this list, including some titles that have won GOTY elsewhere. But no game impacted me emotionally anywhere close to Kentucky Route Zero, a title whose decade-long creation story ended in 2020. Part V of that story was a satisfying conclusion to a beautiful journey about loss, debt and making the most of life’s quiet moments. Ben Babbit’s music is gorgeous throughout, and the story is densely packed with vignettes about lost souls, wandering travelers and sleepy gas stations. There’s no way to lose with Kentucky Route Zero, unless you never play it at all. Once you do, I guarantee you’ll find yourself wanting to go back and follow that same path again to see what else you may have missed. — Ryan Nagelhout

5. (tie) Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

What do you want in a video game? If it’s some realistic, mega lifelike celebration of graphics and realism and movement — “Wow!” you exclaim, “These graphics! This looks like real life!” — then there are probably other games for you. If your thing is more fun and whimsy and general silliness, then Fall Guys is a perfect game for turning your brain off and losing track of time. The concept is simple, and the goal is incredibly straight-forward, but despite this, the game prides itself on being hilariously maddening. You are punished if any tiny move in your frantic mad-dash for a finish line, one determined by either time or a literal finish line, goes awry. It is hilariously addicting. You might get lucky and win one time, but probably not. The pursuit of one win is still worth sinking hours and hours of time into, however. — Bill DiFilippo

5. (tie) Final Fantasy VII Remake

In 1997, a little game by the name of Final Fantasy VII was released and nothing was the same. It received nearly unanimous critical acclaim, popularized JRPGs in America, and raised the bar for storytelling, music, and games as a whole. So, after reading that, here’s my question for you, dear reader: How do you remake a game that revolutionized gaming? How do you recreate something loved so dearly by so many, while also engaging with an entirely new generation of gamers?

I certainly don’t have the answer, but Square did, and the result is an extraordinarily impressive game that not only retains the spirit of its predecessor but expands upon it in meaningful ways. Outside of the significant and striking visual and audio upgrades, the remake gives the original story breathing-room and opportunities for us to explore our characters and their emotions profoundly. Sure, in turning the first seven hours of Final Fantasy VII into a separate 30-hour game, we ended up with a bit of excess padding, but when a city is as alive as Midgar, it’s not so bad getting lost in it. — Jess Howard

4. Hades

Simply put, Supergiant Games does not miss–and Hades is no exception. Hades is what you get when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. In this case, the force is Zagreus, a young god grown weary of his responsibilities as the prince of the underworld. And the object is Hades, his cruel and distant father. The game follows Zagreus’ repeated attempts to escape his home and discover his place in the Greek pantheon, regardless of how many times he must die and return to hell to do so. With repeated strokes of clever storytelling, luscious music and visuals, fun, adaptive gameplay, and a loop that both rewards and motivates players in a way games seldom do, Hades is an exemplary entry in the roguelike genre–but it doesn’t stop there. It’s also narratively compelling and asks players just how far they’d go for both hatred and love. — Jess Howard

3. Call of Duty: Warzone

The task was simple: create a battle royale shooter that isn’t as buggy as PUBG, doesn’t have superpowers like Apex Legends, and isn’t called Fortnite. Let me group up, spend less time looting, and give me that patented Call of Duty gunplay and movement. It’s no surprise (or is it?) that Call of Duty gave us the Call of Duty game we were asking for before anyone else could. The surprising part is that Call of Duty: Warzone is actually really good. It’s addicting. It has a stable netcode. The crossplay is actually useable and I can play with all my friends whether they have a PC or console — it’s the closest game this year to emulate the feeling of sitting side-by-side playing a split-screen shooter, which is something I would try to do with my friends every couple weeks when the world wasn’t in lockdown. Warzone has brought me plenty of great, hilarious memories this year and it stands alone as being the most solid battle royale experience yet in a “genre” riddled with gimmicks and frills. — AJ Lodge

2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was our entire world for a few months this year. In this world, I was an expert fisherman with nerves of steel and I wore funny hats every day. My fiance was an accomplished botanist whose best friend was an upset chicken and, although she hated him profoundly, she couldn’t bear to let him move off our island. It was in this world where we found comfort and, above all, a sense of certainty in the most uncertain time of our lives. It’s because of this that I’m confident in saying that Animal Crossing is the most important video game of 2020. Yes, any other year it might not have even made my Top 5 on gameplay alone, but especially now when video games are at the forefront of the cultural discussion– rivaling (and in some cases usurping) movies, TV shows, books, and music– it’s both unfair and impossible to not consider the context in which it was released when judging its merit. The world is and was a scary place back in March and Animal Crossing was there for us. It was a lot of people’s only gaming experience this year and, hopefully for some, their gateway into a lifelong hobby of picking up a controller. As someone who has loved video games for so long, I could not be more proud of the things that Animal Crossing did that it never intended to do. — AJ Lodge

1. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2

This might not be a pick that other outlets choose as their Game of The Year but there wasn’t quite a game that captured the hearts and minds of an entire staff like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 did for us. Call it nostalgia. Call it shallow. This game shreds and it absolutely did not have to.

This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to remake Tony Hawk or even bring back the Pro Skater franchise for that matter, but all of them failed, because they never quite captured what it is that makes Tony Hawk fun. Ridiculous combos, lots of speed, and a little bit of skill go a long way to making these games great and this one understood that. You know it understands it because there was every reason in the world for the team over at Vicarious Visions to make this a complete cash grab. Just remake the old games as-is, fine-tune the controls a bit, and throw some HD paint on it. That would have sufficed but Pro Skater 1+2 took the best aspects of every Tony Hawk game, such as wallrides or wall plants, and put them in. Yet even with the new additions, you’ll see long time players immediately cling to it like they’ve been playing for years. The first time you drop into Warehouse it will feel the exact same way it did all those years ago even with improved controls. They nailed that feeling perfectly.

In a year like 2020 where it felt like there was just nothing to be excited about. Nothing to feel joy from. It was nice to return to some old familiar lines just like we did back in the day. Is Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 nostalgia? Yes, but it’s the exact kind of nostalgia that should be celebrated. This is how you do a remake. — Chris Barnewell

24-year-old, St. Louis singer-rapper IV4 is a relative newcomer to the game, but she comes with a surprising amount of polish in her UPROXX Sessions debut, singing her new single “Swimming.” Her sing-song flow is the highlight of the song, which features Trippie Redd on the original version, as she compares falling in love to drowning and brags that she’ll even take her man’s side chick.

In her press bio, IV4 says she always knew that she was destined to sing. “I swear I came out singing,” she jokes. “I would always tell my mom and my grandma, ‘I’m going to be a super-famous singer.’ And that’s the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do.” Since then, she’s secured viral hits with “Because of Me,” “Killah,” “Shameless,” and “Work 2 Hard,” securing Trippie Redd for “Swimming” and establishing herself as an artist that bears paying attention to.

Watch IV4’s performance of “Swimming” above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

IV4 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Even if you haven’t waded past the shallow end of the streaming pool, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Sweet Anita.

The Youtuber and Twitch star – who’s readying to host VY Esports’ buzzed-about digital online gaming festival LuudoFest! on Dec. 18th — has amassed an impressive following on both platforms. Millions of people tune in to her streams – she enjoys games like Among Us and Overwatch but her most-returned-to format is her “Just Chatting” channel – expecting a singular, unpredictable, often wildly funny watch.

That’s partly because Sweet Anita has Tourette’s, a nervous system disorder that causes people to make sudden movements or sounds, called tics, that they can’t control. Tourette’s can manifest in all kinds of ways – throat clearing, shrugging the shoulders, humming. Anita’s are almost musical – a whistle here, a plucky pop of her lips there.

She also occasionally shouts expletives and interjects with random phrases too, enough that her fans have started choosing favorites – “b*tch lasagna” and “f*ck a biscuit” are the more popular ones – and some of her critics have publicly wished for her to be banned. But Twitch, both the company and the community of streamers who flock to Anita’s feed, don’t take issue with these unintentionally comical outbursts … and really, why would they?

Though Sweet Anita has only been streaming for about two years, she’s managed to raise thousands for charity through her online platform, and, perhaps more importantly, create a safe space for other non-neurotypical people. It can sometimes come at a cost, especially during a year that’s seen pandemic-induced global lockdowns attract bigger crowds to the gaming verse.

“It’s the kind of platform that really rewards burnout,” Anita tells UPROXX. “But when there’s nothing else in your life to distract you, it just completely facilitates overworking. My biggest challenge this year has been to not overdo it.”

That’s a tough goal when you’ve got a million people monitoring your channel, hoping to catch you playing a round of Crash Bandicoot or initiating a Just Chatting Q&A. Anita has tried to equip her stream with enough resources so that newcomers who might be curious about her condition can learn the basics … and stop quizzing her in the chat.

“It drives me mad,” she says about the constant questioning. “You could play, I don’t know, “Anita Bingo” and get wasted just taking shots every time I get asked if I tic during sex, or, ‘Do I tic during my sleep,’ or am ‘I fully conscious whilst I’m having a tic?’ Out of sheer annoyance, I made this playlist on YouTube of all the different questions answered so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself, and we link it in chat and nobody watches it.”

Still, despite having to often set boundaries with fans, Anita knows any momentary ire is worth it in service of the close-knit community she’s creating. It’s odd – that a group of strangers online brought together by their love of gaming might come to feel like a kind of formed family – but Anita thinks a lot of that has to do with the year everyone’s had, and how streaming has offered safer ways of connecting to more diverse groups of people.

“I have always been someone who has tended to draw in people who either are struggling with mental health or who are lonely, and I think that’s a lot of Twitch, to be honest, is a lot of lonely people,” she says. “I think Twitch has absolutely boomed, and I think it’s probably because with more and more people becoming isolated, more and more people are at home watching, but as well it’s more and more people are lonely and more and more people are turning to streamers to distract them and keep them company.”

That’s partly what drew Anita herself to the platform years ago. Her home life was fluctuating. She’d finally gotten a diagnosis for a condition that plagued her teenage years. She thought finally having the label of Tourette’s might mean people would understand her tics, or at the very least, not judge her for them.

“It became almost like a gimmick to people. People would be, ‘Oh, my God. My friends would love you!’” she recalls. “They thought it was funny and ridiculous. I kind of had the opposite problem where now people liked me and were nice to me, but people were seeing the condition instead of me, and it was not great. But when I started online gaming – I found Overwatch and I could go on push-to-talk. Push-to-talk meant that people saw me and not my condition. Many of the people that I made friends with online on Overwatch didn’t know I had Tourette’s for a good year or two. And that was amazing. I felt valued as a human again and I got to find out that I was friendship material even without the romanticism of my Tourette’s syndrome.”

Of course, that’s since changed. Anita blames her lack of tech-savvy for the start of her streaming career.

“It actually turned out to be a happy accident. I wanted to maintain that I was just a normal person without the condition. I didn’t want to show everyone on my friends list that I had Tourette’s. I had intended to go on push-to-talk, couldn’t figure it out, was like, ‘F*ck it. Let’s go anyway.’”

She was met with surprise by some, weird fascination from others, and the occasional accusation that she was faking her condition for bigger streaming numbers.

“The thing is, I grew up with being punished for it,” Anita explains. “I didn’t have an explanation for what was going on. I got in a lot of trouble for it. I got kicked off public transport. My life was tremendously difficult. I’m quite used to way worse consequences than some mean words on the internet so I wasn’t really afraid of how people would respond to me.”

That’s one of the elements of Anita’s platform that resonates with the people who follow her. Her unabashed self-acceptance, her quick-witted, occasionally dark humor, and her willingness to laugh at herself have invited others to do the same. She doesn’t view herself as a role model – in fact, she outwardly cringes at the idea – but she does acknowledge that the streaming platform has given her a chance to make a difference. That’s why she continues to raise money for various charities – those working with people who have Tourette’s yes, but also ones associated with animal rescue and rehabilitation. (When she’s not outing herself as an imposter in a game of Among Us you might find her neck-deep in a badger sett somewhere in the UK countryside, trying to rescue all kinds of woodland creatures.)

But it’s also why she’s happily inhabited the role of streaming ambassador to the crowds of people who probably haven’t encountered her disorder in real life.

“I don’t think that any person with Tourette’s owes education to anyone,” Anita says. “Would we task someone with cancer, for example, with spending hours upon hours exhaustively explaining to everyone about cancer all the time? Or would we just let them live their lives? I don’t try to pressure myself too much to be an educator. It’s a passive part of what I do anyway because it’s one thing to go and Google Tourette’s and get a definition of the word. It’s another to actually interact with someone, and the humanizing of it is very educational, in and of itself, even without me trying. And so, I will answer the odd question every now and again, if I’m in the mood, but mainly I just try to show people what it looks like to accept yourself and your situation and make it work for you and be happy in that; to use your experience as a tool rather than a reason to weigh yourself down. It’s a reason to step up and build something beautiful.”

Anita’s managed to do that despite a year that proved difficult, terrifying, and even dangerous. On top of the threat of a global pandemic, she was confronted with a truly horrifying stalking incident that put her physical safety in jeopardy.

In July, an obsessed fan began doxxing her – a term familiar to many female gamers that describes how trolls often publish their private information like a home address or contact info in order to invite harassment. Anita went to Twitch and the police, but both failed to fully address the situation, which is what prompted her to share the harrowing experience on social media.

But from this traumatic event, Anita has found another use for her online fame. She’s streamed chats with other Twitch personalities, some men, some women – people like XChocoBars, Kaceytron, and Destiny – who detailed their own stalking incidents and how authorities seemed to disregard their concerns.

“I don’t think that stalking is specifically a female problem on Twitch,” Anita says. “I do feel like if you are a public figure on Twitch, people are going to use you to fill a gap of loneliness in their lives. It tends to be resentful people and mentally ill people, but that fixation will happen regardless of what genitalia you have. I feel like people think it’s a female problem on Twitch. It’s not.”

“I really want to hit home that this is worth challenging and changing on the platform because all of us could have something awful happen to us,” she continues. “It’s something that’s relevant to literally every single one of us, and I think the more we make that clear, the more likely that something is going to be done about it because if it becomes an all-girl problem, nobody will really care. Over 70% of the people who watch Twitch are male and will think it just does not apply to them and that they don’t have to worry about it at all.”

It’s a larger issue the gaming community faces. While streaming propels ordinary gamers like Anita to unexpected heights of fame, that public visibility also invites doxxers and trolls to hop on her chat and terrorize her fans at will. Luckily, Twitch streamers can control that – to an extent – and maintaining that safe space for her audience, especially the other women with Tourette’s who tune in for her streams, is a point of pride for her.

“We have lots of women with Tourette’s syndrome in our Discord, but obviously because most of Twitch’s viewer base is male, a lot of men tend to not be able to relate to women,” Anita acknowledges. “If they admire them, they tend to sexualize it. They never aspire to be like a woman. They tend to aspire to be with a woman. So we end up banning a lot of people, but at least we have the space where people with Tourette’s syndrome are unanimously understood and welcome, which is rare. And then on top of that, a place where we don’t encourage that kind of behavior.”

Anita says she’s seen a “huge change” on the internet when it comes to female gamers, and non-neurotypical gamers, something she credits to platforms like Twitch.

“There are loads of socially isolated people of a very specific demographic on Twitch; people who wouldn’t normally be exposed to this sort of thing and would normally throw a tantrum if they were exposed to this sort of thing,” she explains. “So, people who start throwing tantrums, throwing their toys out the pram because they had to play a game with a girl, are now being exposed to loads of different kinds of people, loads of different kinds of beliefs, in an area that used to be considered a boys-only area. I think that’s wonderful. Everyone has to join a stream voluntarily. It’s not like we’re shoving diversity down people’s throats. It’s there on offer. And I feel like that’s the best way to go about it.”

And as long as more people continue to flock to Twitch and other streaming platforms, the work gamers like Sweet Anita are doing to promote diversity, inclusion, and acceptance will continue to be vital to the growth of the industry at large.

“I get paid to make the world a safer place for people like me because the more people who understand what’s going on with me, the less volatile things are for people like me in public,” Anita says. “So, it’s an honor to be mildly annoyed by chat every day and get paid for the privilege because everyone wins. They learn more about Tourette’s and I get to feed my family.”

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Nearly two years after Russian Doll first revealed some of its hidden treasures, it’s still on people’s minds. Future seasons of the Natasha Lyonne, Groundhog Day-esque, madcap series are planned and in the works, but obviously, much of this year has gone to hell. Hopefully in 2021? We’ll see how things go, but Lyonne wasn’t thrilled at all to see a suggestion that humanity could count down on New Year’s eve, only to wake back up on January 1, 2020 immediately after midnight.

Although this was clearly a joke, Lyonne doesn’t even wanna go there. She swiftly tweeted back at Sam Greisman (who’s Sally Field’s son, as well as a writer and director) with a very succinct response: “Not cool.”

Can you blame her? I think I’d much rather be stuck in Nadia’s timeline, even though she kept on dying, alongside Charlie Barnett’s Alan, than for the world to experience 2020 all over again. And at least in Russian Doll one would receive a trippy parade at the end of the first season. As far as the future of the show goes, neither Lyonne nor fellow creators Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland have revealed too much about what will go down, other than the show will eventually end by revealing a dark and shameful secret. So… Oatmeal the Cat is really Punxsutawney Phil? Yeah, I’m going with that until someone tells me differently. Or until Season 2 drops, whichever comes first.